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Friday, August 11, 2017

New observations of near-Earth asteroid 2012 TC4 reveal 0.1 LD flyby

New observations of near-Earth asteroid designated 2012 TC4 reveal it will fly past our
planet at a very close distance of 0.13 LD (~50 100 km / 31 140 miles)
at 05:42 UTC October 12, 2017. Current estimates suggest it should peak
around mag 13 at closest approach. At the time of closest approach, 2012
TC4 will be over a point in the ocean south of Australia.
The asteroid was spotted recently for the first time since its
discovery in 2012. The original observations revealed the asteroid’s
next approach to our vicinity would be in October 2017 but its orbit
meant that it could not be tracked during the last five years, leaving
astronomers unsure on how close it would come, ESA reported.
Owing to the latest VLT observations by O. Hainaut, D. Koschny, and
M. Micheli, 2012 TC4 is now recovered, the 2012 TC4 Observing Campaign
announced August 6. The campaign is part of a larger international
initiative led by NASA and an excellent opportunity to test the
international ability to detect and track near-Earth objects and assess
our ability to respond together to a real asteroid threat.

Initial observations of a potential object found on July 27, 2017
were confirmed on July 31 and August 5, 2017. The JPL small database
browser now posts the close approach distance for October 12 as 0.000335
AU (0.13 LD, ~50 100 km, 31 140 miles) based on the addition of M.
Micheli's and O. Hainaut's astrometric measurements, and the object's
H-magnitude value near 26.7, corresponding to a diameter of around 15
meters for an object with an albedo of about 15%.